


Electricity

by Luscinnia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Metropolitan Police Service, Yarders, new scotland yard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 03:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1453915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luscinnia/pseuds/Luscinnia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very unusual Christmas party at the Yard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Electricity

With every day Christmas was coming closer but it was hard to get or keep the festive mood when you had to brood over crime scene pictures, evidences and reports.

The festive spirit always fell by the wayside, overshadowed by pre-Christmas- stress induced crimes of all kinds. It was always the same and it took most of the detectives just two Christmas holidays to grasp this pattern. With the beginning of the Advent season there was a noticable increase of incidents with domestic violence involved and much to everbody’s distress those ended ever so often in a dead body for them to fetch.

The office was humming from this pre- Christmas busyness and there was hardly a second to take a deep breath and have a moment to oneself. Not to speak of getting into any sort of contemplative mood.

 

The building situated between Broadway and Victoria Street is old. “The Yard” moved there in 1967 and if one is honest, the age is showing in every nook and corner, they just got too used to it to even care or complain. The whole unpleasantness would be over by 2015 when they’d pack their boxes and move to a building on the Victoria Embankment. It was going to be awful.

At least Lestrade thought so. He was used to this office, this building and he had his doubts that it would do the force any good to split the entirety of 3000 officers up and spread them over the whole of London since the new building would only accommodate 800 of them. He also saw the struggle with the requirement to save money. The whole business gave him headaches and he was glad when he could push those musings away and return to his cases. They often seemed easier to solve to him.

 

Lestrade still enjoyed working in the field. He preferred it to have a look at crime scenes himself, taking the image in before everything got taken away and the scene cleared and closed. It was always a bitter and yet sweet thought that especially here, past, present and the fugacity of it all were the most tangible, at least for him, who always reminded himself of the fragility of a scene. Every inconsiderate touch could throw them back for weeks.

He was forced to stay in the office too often for his liking but he knew beforehand that his tasks would shift the higher he would climb up the greasy pole.

Today was an office day. He was awfully behind with his reports. He was – more or less – in the company of Anderson, Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan and a few other officers that were like them not able to abandon their desks when their shifts were already over.

 

All of them were absorbed in their paperwork when the lights went off and with the lights every single computer monitor died. Lestrade wasn’t able to recall the open space office ever being that silent. No humming of machines or other electrical devices, no ringing telephone, just the wind throwing itself against the glass fronts.

“Donovan?” he asked into the silence, automatically keeping is voice lower than usual. “Here, Sir.” Came the swift reply, as well as the flickering of a torch. He blinked when she blinded him with the beam for a second. “Sorry, Sir.” Lestrade made a dismissive gesture. “Where are the rest?”

 

“I think they all went home a while ago. Just the three of us left.” It was Anderson’s distinctive snarl, although he sounded rather relaxed. “Any ideas what happened?” Lestrade asked and they met between Anderson’s desk and his office. “I guess the electric mains gave up. A miracle it worked without any major disturbances for so long.” They fell silent for a moment. “Impossible to continue working on the paperwork.” Sally remarked and shook the torch which grew rapidly weaker, the beam slowly dimming down from a bright yellow-white beam to something that resembled more the amber golden colour of candlelight.

None of them moved. “Well…” Lestrade said.

 

Heaven knows why but Anderson kept a few tea lights in his desk drawer and they gathered around the forensic’s desk a bit later. Lestrade brought a round of coffee and dry biscuits from the small kitchenette. He got comfortable in a swivel chair, Anderson opposite him nibbled on a biscuit and Sally got rid of her high heels and sat with her back against the desk, one leg tucked under.

“I really get it, Guv. He /is/ clever and brilliant. But I think he is also very rude and behaves absolutely inappropriate to the situations you used to drag him into.” She peered up at him.  
Lestrade nodded. “I know and as much as you are agreeing with me, I have to agree with you but I’m desperate and you know that.” Lestrade paused and tilted his head, looking from her to Anderson and  back. “You both know how it is out there and that times are not getting any better for the force. To say the least.”  Anderson nodded slowly. “Well, I think he is still a risk you don’t need to take.”

 

Lestrade half smiled. “I beg to differ. I think I hardly ever told you two how much I rely on your work. You are both doing a brilliant job and you shouldn’t let the praise Sherlock gets ever so often overshadow this. You get too stuck with being jealous of not having seen what he saw, that you tend to forget about the cases you were able to solve all by yourself, which – I have to emphasise – are quite many in comparison.”

“Greg…” Anderson started but ran out of words and just looked down at one of the candles in front of him. His face illuminated and his features sharpened by the small flame and their play of light and dark and Lestrade could see Sally smiling to herself. “What is that between you two?” He asked right away.  
Sally sighed and looked at Anderson, who quickly glanced at her and started to toy with the hot candle wax. “He is a good listener.” Sally said and Lestrade kept silent. People usually either continued talking or left the topic alone. Something Sherlock had stressed out not too long ago and of which Lestrade had been aware of already.  
“You know” Sally picked the topic up again, speaking to the scattered darkness of the open space office surrounding them. “this job is not easy. For no one. Imagine being a woman and you may be able to understand how much harder that can be. Anderson always supported me.”

The head of the forensics smiled slightly. “Same goes to you. My marriage is…” He trailed off. Lestrade understood. He had been there before himself. “I wasn’t judging you.” He simply said and Anderson nodded gratefully.  
They didn’t speak of Sherlock again but talked about work, colleagues, cases and the problems that came with certain budget cutbacks; about private issues that had never been brought up before. Lestrade spoke about his father and the passing of his mother, Anderson spoke about the loss of his own father when he was just a bit over 30 and Sally spoke about the hardship she experienced for being female and having chosen a careeer in a male dominated profession and for not being white.

They fell silent again at some point. The silence between them not uncomfortable for what seemed to be the first time. Anderson gave up toying with the wax and watched the back of Sally’s head leaning against the desk and turned to look at the dark front that was the glass wall, observing their faint reflections.  
Lestrade watched them for a moment. Those familiar strangers he thought he’d knew.

“Maybe…” he started when the lights came back to life again.  
They squeezed their eyes shut and groaned upon the sudden brightness. The lights of the candles immediately absorbed and overriden. The spell was broken, but the memory would last. Lestrade forgot what he wanted to say and Anderson doused the candles. Sally put her shoes back on and they looked at each other in silence before they all broke into soft laughter.

“Goodnight, I guess.” Lestrade said.

All three of them would refer to this evening as “the best Christmas do” and smile upon the memory. None of them talked about what had been discussed during those few hours when “the Yard” had been cut from power due to clapped-out wiring and they sat down way behind their official knocking off time with each other.

Sometimes, Lestrade mused later, this incident did more for their friendship than any training or case could have done and he was glad about the old wiring of the building situated between Broadway and Victoria Street.


End file.
